a thorough course of the agricultural chemistry, so much in fashion,
before he tries the practical branch of the science. I hope he will not
be too new-fangled and upsetting altogether with his theories; but he
is a good lad in the main, and I think he will do. Besides John, I have
to help his brother James to begin business, and I have two
nieces whose education I am making more thorough than their parents
could afford to do."

"So you have no room for me," said Jane. "I should have known it. I
have no claim on any one, not a relation in the world but a sister,
less fit to cope with it than myself, and a cousin, newly found under
sad circumstances, and tied down not to assist us. But could you not
give us any encouragement, for that is what I want most? Your own
experience----"

"My own experience is very different from what yours can be. My father
died in the early years of a long lease of twenty-one years, when he
had laid out several thousands, all the capital he had, and all he
could raise, upon the land, hoping to get it out again with interest
and a large profit, for the farm was a fine one, though it had been
badly managed before. He had no son to take up the lease; and had
things been wound up, and the lease sold, there would have been a heavy
loss. I believed that I could manage the concern, and got leave from
the landlord, rather as a favour, to continue on Allendale. I
was industrious and methodical, and reduced the expenses of management
below what they had been in my father's time, and consequently made
more money than even he could have made of it. My landlord willingly
took me again for a tenant when the lease was expired, particularly as
I offered as much as any one for it. The value of the lease, stock, and
crop, that I began business with, could not have been less for me to